NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

In high school,  Kim Sung-kyu , the future leader of the boy band  Infinite , had to hide his vocal practice from his parents. In high school, he sang with some of his friends in a rock band. When he graduated he left his hometown of Jeonju in hopes of having a career in music in Seoul. After failing an audition for  SM Entertainment , he tried out for the label  Woolim Entertainment . He hoped to be a rock singer like his future label mate,  Nell . On the day of his audition, though, he was suffering from appendicitis. Determined to make it as a singer, he sang through the pain and went to the hospital after the audition finished. Rather than cultivating Kim's rock talents, the record label placed him as the leader of their first boy band, Infinite. Throughout the group's tenure, they would flirt with rock music; however, it wasn't until Sung-Kyu's debut EP,  Another Me ,  that he would be able to make the kind of music he envisioned.  WHENEVER THIS TIME OF YEAR COMES,

Singles and EPs are nothing new to the music industry, though, in the ‘90s and ‘00s before iTunes, the long-play album became the preferred medium for selling music. You could buy each song from an album and some of the songs were released before the album’s release, but most singles found a home on an album. As for EPs, many of them were limited promotional releases that superfans of a band or artist could collect, often offering limited edition tracks or alternate versions of songs on an album. Sometimes EPs were only available to purchase at the artist’s show. Unlike the American pop and rock music business, Korean pop is meticulously strategic with releases in terms of regulating how much media fans can get from their idols. Singles to “Mini Albums” to full-length albums seems to be the winning formula for K-pop today. I’MMA BITE BACK. On May 27, aespa released their debut studio album, Armageddon . The SM Entertainment band is one of the leading active 4th-generation K-pop girl

Today it’s back to the world of the Hybe Corporation . In 2019, Hybe hired Min Hee-jin (민희진) as the company’s chief brand designer. She worked as the company began a transitional phase when BigHit Entertainment took on several subsidiary record labels. Min had worked for SM Entertainment , one of the big three K-pop labels in the ‘90s to early ‘10s, and had been the creative director behind some of the label’s biggest acts such as Exo , SHINee , (f)x , and Girls' Generation. She then worked developing other K-pop acts on every label for Hybe except for BigHit because that label had its own specialized brand designer. But upon being hired at BigHit (later Hybe), Min demanded her own subsidiary, Ador , of which the brand designer became CEO. Ador was formed in 2021 and signed their first act in 2022.   WANNA BE A WINNER. Min Hee-jin planned to release a girl group in 2022. Hybe Corporation was known for its boy bands and rappers. Still, with SM, YG , and JYP releasing successful f

I’ll-It, later known as ILLIT , was formed with the winning members of the 2023 South Korean survival competition show R U Next ? The show was broadcast JTBC and streamed on Netflix and Wavve beginning June 30, 2023. Along with JTBC, the show was created by Belift Lab , a sublabel of Hybe , the label responsible for introducing the world to BTS and NewJeans . Six winners were selected by the end of the show and those members became ILLIT, a K-pop girl group who just scored a Billboard Hot 100 entry on their first single--an accomplish-ment, a first of its kind. “ Magnetic ” is one of the biggest K-pop songs now, and other songs from Hybe Corporation are charting high in Korea and other countries. But as the label has brought K-pop to its imperial phase, ILLIT has come under fire as an imitation of the label’s other successful girl group, NewJeans. I DON’T NEED ANY GOLDEN TICKET. Hybe Corporation began as Big Hit Entertainment in 2005. The label signed their first act, 8Eight in

On Christmas 2019, Shon Seung-wan (손승완) , better known by her stage name Wendy , fell off the stage when rehearsing for a solo performance on SBS Gayo Daejeon . Faulty stage design and alleged lack of safety measures were blamed, causing the Red Velvet singer to fall over 8 feet, sustaining injuries on her right side--a pelvic fracture, a broken wrist, and a broken cheekbone. Not only did this fall cancel the upcoming event, but it left her in the hospital for two months. Fortunately, the accident didn’t end Wendy’s career but forced her to take a hiatus for most of 2020 from her role as singer and dancer in SM Entertainment ’s one-time fifth-most steamed K-pop group on Spotify .  I WANT YOU TO LOVE ME. Wendy debuted with the group Red Velvet in 2014. The girl group is known for a dualistic sound signified by their name, Red implies the group’s frenetic energy they apply as dancers and singers to musically complex song structures. Velvet refers to the smooth sound of the group’s balla

  Last year, RIIZE debuted on SM Entertainment with the single album Get a Guitar , which contained two songs, “ Memories ” and the title track . The group was the first new boyband to debut on SM in seven years, following NCT ’s debut in 2016. The concept of the fifth-generation K-pop group is “emotional pop” akin to the millennium boyband sound--first and second-generation K-pop.  RIIZE is a portmanteau of the words rise and realize , and the group’s motto is “a team that rises together and realizes dreams.” RIIZE was created with Sungchan (정성찬) and Japanese singer Shotaro Osaki , members of the massive now 26-member supergroup NCT, combined with five other members to form RIIZE. Get a Guitar sold more than one million copies in its first week. The success nearly matched H.O.T , whose debut album slightly outsold RIIZE's debut. DRAWING SUNSHINE IN THE RHYTHM. Last month, Slate ’s Hit Parade podcast delved into the history of boybands. Host Chris Molanphy first guided list